


Mala Fides

by GloriaGilbertPatch



Series: Skirt Suits [4]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-06 02:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaGilbertPatch/pseuds/GloriaGilbertPatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>3x09 from Scottie's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mala Fides

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I make no claim to any of the characters, situations, or dialogue from Suits. Any real people or entities are referenced fictitiously. "Mala fides," of course, is Latin for, "bad faith," because I'm suuuuuuuper clever like that.

The key to dealing with any adversary was to know how he thought, and when the adversary was Harvey Specter, so much the better because Dana Scott had spent the better part of the last two decades learning exactly how he thought. When Edward had called her, explaining with fury the deal he’d been forced to strike with the U.S. Attorney’s office and asking her to help, promising her the moon if she could bring Harvey and Jessica down, she couldn’t even help the fact that her mind jumped immediately to what Harvey would do.

He and Jessica were pissed, and honestly, rightfully so. Hell, _Dana_ was pissed, and she’d known the good sides, the kind and mentoring sides, of Edward and Stephen, for most of her professional career. She didn’t blame Harvey and Jessica for being completely done with them. The fact, however, remained that it was her job to mitigate Harvey, and pissed-off Harvey was a sneaky son-of-a-bitch, but she was one step ahead.

“Dana, your secretary called my secretary?”

Nigel Nesbitt stood in the door of her office, a little bit uncertainly, and Dana smiled winningly at him.

“Yes, Nigel. I need to talk to you about something. Please come in.” She gestured to the chairs in front of her desk and smiled again, as genuinely as she could. Nigel was one of the oddest men she’d ever met, but he was a good lawyer who cared deeply about the firm and was probably a nice guy, deep down, and she was counting on him.

“As you know, Edward has put me in charge of handling the dissolution of our merger with Pearson…whoever. I need you to represent the interests of Darby International in the negotiations,” she said, crisply, as Nigel sat down.

“Me, Dana?” he asked, polite but vaguely surprised.

“You _are_ quartermaster,” she reminded him gently. “You know their assets better than anyone else here; hell, you probably know their assets better than half the senior partners there. You’re the natural choice.” She hesitated a moment before adding, “Besides, I know who’s negotiating on their side, and it’s not Jessica Pearson. It’s Louis Litt. And if anyone can get the best of Louis Litt, it’s you.”

“What do you need?” he asked immediately, perking up. “I can and will get you _blood_.”

Dana smiled but shook her head.

“That won't be necessary,” she said coolly. “You just need to get Louis flustered enough that he agrees to lock in the current client allocations.”

“Excuse me?” Nigel asked, frowning. She grinned.

“Jessica and Harvey are pissed off,” she explained. “When Harvey's pissed off, he plays dirty. They’ll send Louis to negotiate and in the meantime Harvey will try to get as many of our clients as possible to list him or Jessica as attorney of record just in time to walk away with our business.” She paused a moment. “Total bad faith, but like I said, he plays dirty when he’s pissed. So, can you do this for me?”

Nigel nodded.

“Of course I can, Dana. You have my word.”

She smiled warmly at him.

“Thank you. If you’ll stop at Linda’s desk on your way out, she’ll give you your flight information. We leave this afternoon.”

“You’re coming, too?” he asked, curiously, as he rose to leave. Dana grinned.

“Of course. Harvey’s not going to waste time, so I’ll have to waste it for him while you’re locking in the client allocations.”

“How are you going to do that?”

Dana smirked.

“I’m gonna get there first. He’s obviously going to start by targeting Samsung, so I’ll be waiting for him when he gets there and pick a fight. Not hard.”

“You're sure about this?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious. She shrugged.

“Look, Nigel, for better or for worse, I know this man. I _can_ beat him. Trust me.”

He nodded before leaving, and Dana let out a long breath, mentally running through everything she was going to need on this yet-another trip to the States. She’d packed a bit haphazardly – a couple of office-appropriate dresses as well as some more casual clothes just in case she got stuck in New York for a while – but she was pretty sure she had everything covered.

This was going to be okay.

The flight was long and boring and sitting next to Nigel just made it longer and Dana, more restless. It wasn’t even anything he did consciously, she had to admit; he just had the innate ability to make her uncomfortable. It really didn’t make any sense, either, since she knew perfectly well that Nigel liked and respected her, but being around him always made her feel uneasy, as if he were judging everything about her.

Still, she had to be magnanimous, and after they’d settled in they sat down to have a drink at the hotel bar.

“You’re sure there’s nothing you want but the current client allocations?” Nigel asked, sipping on his scotch. Dana took a long drag of the Stella she’d ordered in a hint of rebelliousness, and nodded.

“Everything else is just window dressing,” she said calmly. “The clients are the money. The clients are the leverage. Lock that in, and text me immediately once you get Louis Litt to sign.” She drank again, relishing the way her drink of choice clearly made Nigel uncomfortable and forcing herself not to remember all the cheap beer she’d drunk with Harvey back when they were young.

It was in the past. He’d loved her once, and she’d always be important to him in her own way, and she knew it, but they’d been different people then.

And Stella really kind of tasted like piss.

She finished the pint, though, drinking so quickly that the alcohol went straight to her head. It gave her a slight rush when she stood up, and she made a mental note to drink some water before bed.

“Heading up?” Nigel asked with a slight smile. Dana nodded.

“Yeah, I’m exhausted,” she said, digging in her wallet and dropping a couple of twenties on the bar. “Good luck with Louis tomorrow.”

“Won’t need it, but thank you,” he replied easily, pressing his fingers together and looking off into the distance rather than at her. “Good night, Dana.”

She shook her head a little as she headed for the elevators. Nigel was so weird.

\--

It probably shouldn’t have been a victory to wake up and realize that she was not hungover, but the past few days had been hellish enough that Dana was taking victories where she could find them. She dressed quickly, in a formfitting sheath and power heels but with minimal makeup, and headed downstairs to hail a cab, stopping on the way to Samsung for the hazelnut coffee and garlic bagel with scallion cream cheese that no one did quite like New York.

Despite the detour, she was well ahead of schedule, and took the time to lean against the building and eat her breakfast, smirking to herself at how neatly she and Nigel had the thing locked up. Harvey might like to lord his victories over her, but this time she had his number, and it just made her wonderfully fattening bagel even more delicious. And she still had time to finish, tossing her garbage aside and pulling out her phone to check for Nigel’s text. Not yet, but it was coming.

Dana moved closer to the street, fiddling with her phone, and grinned when she saw Harvey coming– though as soon as he noticed her she wiped the smile off her face.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” she said coolly, putting her phone away.

“You knew I’d come after Samsung.”

“I knew what suit you’d be wearing.” Medium grey, single breasted, peak lapels, with a light blue shirt and gunmetal tie: stylish but subdued and exactly the right choice. Except he wasn’t getting through the door.

He grinned a little, as if in spite of himself he was happy to see her, but Dana wasn’t playing the game this time. She’d wasted too many years of her life going weak at Harvey Specter smiles.

“I know Tiger Woods wears red on Sundays. Doesn’t mean I can beat him,” Harvey said smugly, and Dana leaned in to taunt him a little.

“I’m not going to let you poach our clients, Harvey.”

“You poaching our clients is what led us to this God-damned merger in the first place,” he retorted.

“That was fair game. This is bad faith,” she reminded him.

“Bad faith! I’m going after Samsung! I’m not murdering anybody and lying about it to my partners,” he said, slightly sanctimoniously, and while he was perfectly right and what Stephen had done was much worse, it was _still_ bad faith – and he knew it. Still, she couldn’t let it slide.

“Don’t you dare put me in with them,” she said, not smiling.

“You put yourself in with them. Speaking of which, what the hell you still doin’ in bed with these people, Scottie?”

It was almost endearing when Harvey’s carefully nurtured upperclass accent broke a little, and there was a part of Dana that thrilled to the idea that he cared so much about her reputation and her future that he couldn't be bothered to keep his roots from peeping through, but now was neither the time nor place.

“As you know, I don’t always have the _best_ judgment of who I get in bed with, and as for why I’m still in business with them – ”

“Let me guess. You beat me in the dissolution negotiation, you get your name on the door.”

She nodded cheerfully.

“Yep. Darby agreed to it the second that you pushed him out.”

“He only did that because he knew when word got out that his house was on fire, he had to do something,” Harvey countered, calm enough to be speaking with his usual well modulated, generic Northeastern voice again.

“Well, he did. He put me against you. And as you just noted, our house is on fire, and I’m gonna fight tooth and nail to put the damned thing out.”

 _Just keep him talking, Dana_ , she reminded herself. Whether he got to her or not, she was getting to him, and every minute they spent talking was another minute he couldn’t be using his charm up at Samsung’s legal department.

“You can fight tooth and nail all you like, but it’s never done a thing for you against me before.”

“That’s because I always had something _else_ on my mind before, but you’ve made it clear that that’s never going to happen, so if you think you’re going to win this time, you’ve got another thing coming,” she responded, evenly, and – yes! – there was a hint of concern on his face again. _Just keep him talking, you can feel bad about it later if you have to_.

“Say what you want, Scottie, I’m going in there, and you’re not gonna stop me.”

Their phones went off simultaneously, and Dana reflexively looked down at hers even though if Nigel had done his job right, she knew exactly what was coming.

“I’m afraid I already did,” she said crisply. “Client list just got locked. So you can go in there and give it a shot, but they’re never gonna sign with a guy who just got played on their front porch.” She grinned at him, then, enjoying the high that she still got every time she bested Harvey Specter, and turned around without looking back, knowing he was watching her as she walked away.

He always had liked how she looked in white.

\--

It was a bit too early for a cocktail, even a celebratory one, so Dana congratulated herself instead by spending a small fortune on flowers to be delivered to each of the New York clients she valued most. It was enough to make a girl sick of the phrase, “Thanks for sticking with me thorough all the upheaval!” but she wasn't going to let grass grow under her feet. Harvey might be mitigated, but he wasn't wrong about Darby International's being on fire, and if she wanted there to be anything left, she needed to make sure all of her clients knew their loyalty mattered to her. By the time she met Nigel for lunch, she was pretty sure she’d reached everyone.

“So, how’d it go with Louis?” she asked as she slid into her seat and opened the menu absently. “You tied things up pretty quickly.”

“All I had to do was mention Mikado, and it was easy,” he said with a laugh. “Although tearing up the photograph of him dressed as Theodore Roosevelt was also a useful touch.”

Dana rolled her eyes.

“I’m still not over the fact that you two _efficiency experts_ spent tens of thousands of dollars in billable hours – and not only your own; you used all the first- and second-year associates, too – on that stupid cat trial.”

“Yes, well, it hit a nerve, didn’t it? We locked in the current client allocations, didn’t we?”

“And he would have been just as upset if you had said straight from the beginning, ‘You’re insane; this is my cat; do your actual job.’ But. Water under the bridge, I guess, and most of the time spent was on their side, so maybe it’s actually a plus for us.” She shrugged a little as the waiter came by to take their drink orders. “By the way, what did they get in the settlement?”

“The jet – which they have no actual use for; we’ll buy it back below cost within a year – their first dividend checks, and we will be paying for their new letterhead. I did specify that that’s a one-time deal, of course; we’re not going to put ourselves on the hook for stationery and business cards every time they change their name.”

“Harvey will probably order gold leaf engraving, just to stick it to us,” Dana said absently, but she was grinning.

“Even if he does, take a look at the division of assets. We are by far the victors,” Nigel answered, pushing a stack of papers across the table at her. She looked down and raised her eyebrows.

“I mean, it’s almost unfair,” she said with a slight smirk. “Except for the part where we came in with all the money, and oh, look, we’re leaving with it, too.”

“Well, except for Hessington Oil,” admitted Nigel. “That was Edward and Stephen’s client, but they’re pretty solidly Harvey Specter’s now, and there’s really no way around it.

“No, I guess not,” Dana agreed. “Still, even without their business and the expected revenue they bring in, we won, and I for one think that we should celebrate.”

“American Ballet Theatre,” Nigel declared, as they clinked glasses, and Dana made a face.

“Not my idea of a celebration, but hey, if that’s what you want to do with your time, I’m certainly not gonna stop you.”

“Oh, and what are you going to do, hang around the hotel and watch television?” he asked defensively.

“You say that as if I haven’t earned it. Come on, Nigel: Did I call it, or did I call it?”

“You did call it,” he admitted readily, and look at that, she was _almost_ having a pleasant conversation with Nigel.

They parted ways in the afternoon, the time difference – and the fact that she’d already seen to her American clients – meaning that Dana actually _was_ able to take the time to herself as both firms waited for their respective finance departments to allocate revenue. It almost made her a little bit antsy, but it was hard not to be content as she strolled through the city, enjoying Manhattan in the early fall, high on the thrill of beating Harvey and doing her best not to think about what came next.

Because eventually she’d have to go back to London with Nigel and try to put Darby’s reputation back together, and the idea was both exciting and exhausting. Rebranding – Darby & Scott – with her at the forefront, necessarily, a young-but-seasoned face for a firm with sudden baggage. It would be almost like building from the ground up, except for office space and the highly trained lawyers and the piles of money. So…maybe not quite like building from the ground up.

Still, it would be a lot of work, so Dana took care to relish the rest of the day, when she still had almost nothing on her plate, and went to bed early for the first time in longer than she could remember.

The time difference meant that when she woke up and logged on to the Darby network, she’d received three rambling emails from three separate financial analysts and one succinct one from the controller. Sighing, she opened their attached spreadsheets and got back to the nitty-gritty details of separating the two firms, calling down for room service so that she didn’t even have to bother with breakfast. As she tucked her hair behind her ears and settled her legs on the extra chair, she had to admit, if just to herself, that there was a part of her that loved this a bit more than she should have.

She spent most of the morning working, smiling faintly at the maid when she came in, and redoubling her efforts when she received a slightly different proposal from Louis Litt. Knowing Louis even as faintly as she did, she was sure there was some sort of slight meant to Nigel, that the email was addressed to her and he was only cc’d, but it really didn’t matter as she dug into the Pearson accountants’ spreadsheet. There were a couple of showy differences, but substantially it was the same as the one that had come in from London, and when Dana finally put away her laptop and took a shower, she was fairly certain that the whole thing was wrapped up.

\--

She had barely had time to get dressed – something casual again; maybe she’d try to look up a couple of her old friends, as long as she was in town – when she heard knock at her door. Couldn’t be housekeeping again; and she hadn’t ordered more room service. Carefully she got to her feet and went over to answer it – Nigel. Huh.

“Nigel, what a surprise,” she said, faintly. “Look, I told you I’m not particularly interested in the ballet, but if you want to get tickets to the orchestra, I might be willing to – ”

“This isn’t about that, Dana,” he answered abruptly. “It’s the wrong time of year, anyway – but…the settlement calculations. Apparently the settlement with Folsom Foods has been paid in full.”

Dana swore under her breath before deciding that to hell with it, Nigel could hear her curse.

“And when we merged we agreed that the Folsom plaintiffs would count as their clients, not ours, even though we paid for litigation and I was attorney of record on at least as many cases as Harvey was. God _damn_ it, Harvey.”

“You didn’t anticipate this,” said Nigel, almost smugly, and Dana frowned.

“No, but I probably should’ve. I just didn’t think it was even a possibility – there’s no way Daniel Hardman agreed to this. He literally wouldn’t piss on Harvey and Jessica if they were on fire.” She sighed. “I’ll fix it, though, I promise.”

“I don’t see how you can,” Nigel said, gently now. “The cash is in hand, and unless we can get a similar advance from our own clients…”

“Can we do that?” she asked, considering. She hadn’t worked recently on any large transactions that hadn’t yet been paid in full, but Nigel was like a machine about the firm’s cases. He was shaking his head, though.

“We have some fees outstanding, of course, but we’d have to collect almost all of them to tilt the scales back, and that has never happened in the history of accounts receivable.”

“We make more money than they do!” she exclaimed in frustration. “Fucking cash accounting; we should’ve insisted on accrual.”

“The accountants _would_ love that,” Nigel said thoughtfully, and Dana threw him a dirty look. Apparently hyperbole was beyond the man’s comprehension.

“Great, moving forward, I’m insisting on GAAP,” she said sarcastically. “In the meantime…I’ve gotta go to Harvey.” She shook her head. “And I would rather do almost literally anything else.”

“Are you going to sleep with him?” Nigel asked softly. Dana frowned.

“Look, Nigel, I know you need to know for your Excel spreadsheet thing, but you get why that’s a weird thing to ask, right?”

“You have feelings for him,” he said, slightly stiffly. “He has feelings for you. It’s not entirely out of the question.”

“Right. ‘Harvey, let us have some money back, and I’ll have sex with you.’ That’s a great idea. Really going to impress him with my integrity on that one.” She sighed. “I’ll ask him as a personal favor, and if that doesn’t work, as a professional one. But I’m not going to prostitute myself. I’ll figure something out.”

Nigel still looked vaguely awkward and uncertain, and in the back of her mind Dana registered that he always did, when anyone’s emotions came into play.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, softly. “I really do think I can fix this.” He nodded.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She carefully started ushering him towards the door. “I need to change before going over.” She gestured down at her skinny jeans and silk tank top. “I’m already coming in at a disadvantage.”

Nigel left with another nod in farewell, and Dana let out a long breath, taking off her clothes as she inspected the closet and tried her best to come up with a strategy for Harvey that didn’t involve sacrificing _all_ of her dignity.

She chose a black, low-cut dress that was probably better suited to the evening than the office. But that was only fitting, since she wasn’t going to Harvey’s office; she was going to his apartment. If she was going to trade on the fact that she _mattered_ to him, she might as well go to him, personally, as herself, the girl she knew he still sometimes saw when he looked at her, rather than as his professional adversary. Along those lines, she put on a bit more makeup than she had the morning before, trying to look pretty in a way that hadn’t mattered when she had had the upper hand, and she hated herself for it but another coat of mascara it was before she grabbed her handbag and left the room, silently praying this wasn’t going to blow up in her face.

The cab ride over was miserable, so much that she felt guilty enough to over-tip the driver when she got out and made her way up to Harvey's apartment without even bothering to say hello to the doorman - she didn't have to; she had a key, and tonight she didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

His place was immaculate, as usual: Beautiful and stylish and easily looked as if no one had ever lived there. Dana sometimes thought that Harvey's home was less welcoming than a Pottery Barn setup, but it worked for him, and she wasn't going to question it, not tonight especially. Instead, she grabbed a lowball glass from the bar and poured herself a few fingers of one of the lower-end scotches (she'd never tell Harvey, but she honestly couldn't taste the difference between a glass of twelve-year-old Glenfidditch, which cost twenty bucks, and a glass of twenty-five-year-old Macallan, which cost two hundred).

She drifted around the living room a little, remembering easier visits to this apartment, and drank a little bit faster than was probably prudent before moving out to the balcony. It was beautiful out as the afternoon gave way to evening, not hot the way August had been but not yet cool enough that she was anything but comfortable as she settled into a deck chair and looked out at the sun setting over Manhattan. Harvey wouldn't be home for some time, but she had deliberately limited her workload to the firm's dissolution. She could wait.

Dana heard the door open and the unmistakable sound of Harvey’s footsteps as he walked in, and it was probably concerning that she still knew the sound of Harvey fucking _walking_ , but whatever. She took in a deep breath and a long sip of scotch. This wasn’t going to be fun, and it wasn’t going to be pretty, and there was almost nothing she wouldn’t rather be doing, but she _had_ to. She could _not_ let Darby International take the heat for all of this; she could not let her firm – her home – her professional reputation – hell, her _bank accounts_ – go up in flames, and if that meant humbling herself before Harvey Specter, then she’d God damned humble herself before Harvey Specter.

“I never should have given you my key,” he said, as he passed the sliding door to the deck.

“And I never should have forgotten that you’ll stop at _nothing_ to beat me,” she countered, walking into the apartment as Harvey dropped his keys on the coffee table.

“No. You shouldn’t have,” he answered, heading towards the kitchen and pointedly not looking at her.

“Harvey…The man that I knew might have fought to the death, but he always operated in good faith.”

“I told you, I am not bound by good faith on this deal after what your boss did,” he said, finally looking her in the face as he got himself a drink – water. Surprising.

“It’s not just Edward’s firm,” she reminded him.

“What does that have to do with it?”

“ _What does that have to do with it?_ You shrunk the whole pie for the sole purpose of getting a bigger piece for yourself, and it screwed me along with Edward.”

“What do you want, Scottie?” he asked, his voice cold but his eyes softening, and she met him head on. Yes, she might have to humble herself, but she didn’t have to be ashamed.

“I want you to exclude the Folsom Foods payments from the settlement calculations.”

“And why would I do that?” he asked, arrogantly, but the very fact that he had said anything other than, “No,” meant that she still had a shot, and she leapt at it.

“Because I need you to,” she said, simply, turning as he came around to her until they were standing opposite each other, barely arm’s distance apart.

“I’m afraid that’s not enough,” he replied. He was coming even closer, though, and if there was anything she’d learned in the sixteen years she’d known Harvey Specter, it was that the fact that he was still talking meant that she hadn’t lost yet.

“You, uh…you came to me,” she said quietly, looking down for a moment before catching and holding his gaze once more. “You needed help with Ava Hessington, _after_ you sent me back to London. You said that I mean something to you, that I’ll – I’ll always mean something to you. Was that bullshit or not?”

“It wasn’t bullshit,” he said, softening, “and if you were in trouble _personally_ …”

“I _am_ in trouble personally,” she reminded him, cutting him off. “You said so yourself. Our house is on fire, and it’s my job to put it out. If you crush me…I’ll have nothing.”

“That’s not personal, that’s business,” he insisted.

“Okay, let’s talk business,” she answered, coming closer. “You made a career out of putting IOUs in the bank. Do the same thing right now. Put an IOU in with me.” She was so close now she could feel it every time he breathed, and she knew – she _knew_ – that he wasn’t unaffected. Maybe he didn’t love her. But she was pretty sure he came as close as he knew how.

“And what’s to stop you from still trying to screw me after that?” he asked, softly, and Dana almost hurt for him. Yeah, she played dirty at work sometimes, but personally she had always been on his team, and he knew it. He fucking _knew_ it.

But the name of the game today was humility, so she kept her tone even.

“My word that I won’t.”

He looked at her for a long moment, and God damn it, she couldn’t help how much she wanted to make him promises he hadn’t asked for, to beg and to cry and to hold him close to her, but she stood there and looked back. He bit his lip and looked down, and it hurt so much that he couldn’t trust her word immediately – hurt not to have his trust and hurt worse to know that Harvey couldn’t bring himself to trust even a woman he knew perfectly well was in love with him.

“I'll talk to Jessica,” he said finally, looking down, an expression on his face as if this was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do.

“Thank you,” she said earnestly, and she reached for him almost on impulse, laying her hand on his forearm. His eyes flicked to where she was touching him, and five years ago she would've already been in his arms or on her knees – but five years ago, she wouldn't have been begging him, and the look in Harvey's eyes right now wasn't lust.

“Yeah, well...” he offered, a little bit helplessly. “Bad faith is bad faith.”

Dana gave him a smile that was both understanding and a bit sad - because yes, working in bad faith was not a great business plan, and he shouldn't have done it regardless. But she couldn't help still wanting his friendship, his trust. She'd even be happier to owe him a favor.

“Enjoy the rest of your night, Harvey,” she said softly, giving his arm a squeeze before she turned to go. She could feel him watching her as she walked away, but she didn't look back. She and Harvey weren't quite friends again, and they definitely weren't lovers, and looking back at him wasn't going to lead anywhere smart.

It wasn't that she wanted to go back to the way things had been between them, she thought as she got on the elevator and pushed for the ground floor. She wasn’t necessarily one for labels, but it wasn’t exactly going out on a limb to say that having casual sex with a man she was in love with wasn’t a recipe for happiness or moving on with her life. And that was what it was, what it had been for bulk of the thirteen years since they graduated Harvard. He was always happy to see her. She was always happy to see him. They fought; they flirted; they fucked; they went their separate ways. Maybe they called here or there, the way she sometimes got nostalgic and called her old roommate from college, or maybe they showed up for important moments, the way she still did with her best friend from childhood. But it wasn’t a relationship, and it got in the way of her relationships, and someday – _someday_ – Dana really did want to settle down. Well. She wanted to get married. And she’d tried, with Steve, but then that God damned hotel case had come along, and seeing Harvey…

And yet, the idea of rebuilding her life without a place in it for Harvey was just a little bit horrifying and more than a little bit lonely. He was part of every memory of law school, of the milestones of her professional life. Not being able to get drinks with him, to tease him about his vanity or his tendency to be a shithead, to work cases with or against him and match wits, to be next to him when something was sad and to know that even though they’d never say it, being together made it better – it just sounded like a duller version of her life. But he didn’t want to have her for real, and she had to respect that, and maybe…maybe duller was better.

She went back up to her room and dropped her dress on the floor, changing quickly into pajamas and deciding, somewhat rebelliously, that she was _leaving_ her dress on the floor before brushing her teeth and getting into bed.

She’d humiliated herself, but she’d gotten what she wanted. If only it didn’t still feel like shit.

The next morning, Jessica Pearson personally sent over a new email listing total revenue allocation that excluded the payments from Folsom. Dana sent back a quick, polite reply and paused, for a moment, before adding Harvey’s name to the recipients list. In a vague sense she was almost proud of him, although not as much as she was grateful. She had a daunting task still ahead of her, and trying to accomplish it without the firm’s money was pretty much impossible.

She took care of a few more administrative needs, approving Pearson’s initial stationery order and emailing with her protégé among the senior associates. Nate was a good lawyer and a quick study, but she'd dropped him into the deep end on this deal and he still needed a little guidance, even if so far he seemed to have risen well to the occasion. Overall, it had been a good day when the bomb dropped – Hessington Oil had officially released Pearson Darby Specter as legal counsel.

It wasn’t _really_ a shock, if Dana thought about it dispassionately. After all, since Harvey had taken them on as a client, they’d been bought out by Tony Gianopoulos and their CEO had narrowly gotten out of murder charges. And _before_ Harvey took them on, Stephen had actually had those murders committed and implicated the company. In their place, Dana would probably be looking for a new law firm, too. But she knew Harvey would take it personally, and she also suspected he would soon be calling her or emailing her or, hell, even texting her to get her to exclude the loss from the settlement, lording his mercy from the night before over her head.

She would, too, if he asked, but just in case she forwarded the news to London and asked finance for yet another spreadsheet. As she sent the email she couldn’t help shaking her head, thinking ruefully that they would definitely owe the accountants significant bonuses for this headache. In the meantime, the weather was nice and it wasn’t quite dark yet, so she grabbed her phone and decided to go for a short run.

When she got back all hell had broken loose.

“Nigel, what the hell? I just finished working out; I need to shower and change; why are you…lurking in front of my hotel room?”

“Dana, there’s been a disaster.”

He looked so solemn that she couldn’t help it; she sighed, opened her door, and let him in, leaving him in the bedroom as she went to the bathroom so that at least she could rinse her face off.

“What happened?” she called, reaching for a towel and coming back to look at Nigel’s solemn face. He shook his head a little and looked down at a bundle of papers in his hands.

“It looks as though Gianopoulos Limited Holdings, who became a client of Pearson Darby Specter’s when they became the majority shareholder of Hessington Oil, has decided to expand their relationship with the firm, or so the revenue that Ms. Pearson and Mr. Specter are reporting would indicate.”

“What?” whispered Dana, grabbing the papers from him and staring at them in disbelief. “I can’t believe – he _promised_ – ”

“It seems you were misled,” Nigel said calmly. “Good God, Dana, the man couldn’t have been worse for your career if he’d specifically set out to ruin you.”

Suddenly she couldn’t look at him. Her hands were shaking as she clutched the proposal, and she sank helplessly onto the bed.

“I…Nigel…I need to shower,” she said weakly. Nigel stared at her.

“You need to deal with this,” he corrected, albeit gently, but Dana shook her head.

“Yes – I…” She sighed and squared her shoulders. “I’ll _handle_ it. I just need some time to figure out…look, Nigel, you…”

“I’m going back to London in the morning,” he reminded her. “Are you _sure_ you can handle this?”

“I’m sure,” she said quietly. Nigel nodded slightly, clearly not as sure, but he dutifully left her room and she sat there another moment, staring blankly at the turned-off television.

He’d offered her mercy. And then he’d screwed her over anyway.

The water was a little bit too hot, but it suited both her anger and her sadness, even if it left her skin slightly pink as she fixed her hair and makeup and put on a low-cut silk dress that just straddled the line of professionalism. She thought seriously about tossing back a shot from the minibar before shaking her head and determining that this time she’d drink some of Harvey’s more expensive liquor.

From the firm. Because that’s where she was going this time. They’d made a professional agreement, and he’d acted in total bad faith, and if he thought she was going to beg him he could think again. Fucking Harvey.

\--

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Dana exclaimed as she walked into his office, tossing the revenue allocation statement at his lap.

“I see you got my little gut punch,” he answered, caustically, without rising from his stupid fucking glass desk.

“I came to you hat in hand, and this is what you do, stack the numbers?”

“Hat in hand? More like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice lowering now with suspicion as well as anger.

“Hessington Oil.”

“I had _nothing_ to do with that,” she insisted, and God, what the _fuck_ was wrong with him? She’d met Ava Hessington _twice_ , and that was _years_ ago, and more than that, she’d looked Harvey in the eyes and given him her word that she wouldn’t screw him over.

“Something dropped from the sky, tilted everything in your favor, right after I cut you a break? I don’t think so.”

“Harvey, I gave you my word, and I honored it,” Dana said, levelly.

“Bullshit. You’re just saying that because I’ve got the upper hand.”

“This is not about the upper hand.”

“You’re always about the upper hand!”

“Harvey, stop!” she yelled, finally losing it. “I came to you and asked for mercy. Do you know how hard that was for me? And then for me to turn around and use that to dupe you – how could you think I would do that?”

“What would you have thought?” he asked, mostly rhetorically, but there was an opening – there had to be. He had to _want_ to trust her, or – oh, who the fuck knows how Harvey Specter’s mind works.

“I don’t know, but you could have called me," she insisted.

“And say what?”

“And asked me to exclude the firing from the calculations.”

“I’m not gonna do – ” he began, but Dana wasn’t having it.

“What? You’re not gonna do what? Not gonna give me the benefit of the doubt and be vulnerable, expose yourself?”

His eyes were getting red, but she had to say it. Harvey had gotten away with this shit entirely too long.

“I already did that when I trusted you,” he insisted.

“That was mercy, which is from a position of strength. Being vulnerable is from a position of weakness,” she reminded him, and he looked away.

“Well, I’m not gonna do that,” he said, and, damn it, she spent more time in this fucked up relationship hurting for him than she did hurting from the shitty things he did to her. As if she would use his vulnerability against him like that, as if she were some kind of evil succubus who preyed on his weaknesses and reveled in hurting him.

“Well, then I guess I’m not going to either.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that I am not going to dissolve this merger.”

“You already signed the agreement.”

“Then sue me,” she said, finally sitting down opposite him. The suits were coming anyway; she had nothing left to lose. Might as well hold onto her pride. “You’re gonna totally shaft me anyway. What’s my downside? In the meantime, you’ll have a name partner who can’t practice in America, whose reputation is shit, and who’s gonna tie up all your profits in litigation for the next five years.” And that was being generous.

“You’re willing to do all that, and expect me to believe you weren’t behind us getting fired in the first place?”

_Duh, Harvey. There’s breaking my word, breaking your trust to screw you over, and then there’s dragging you down with me, and they’re not fucking the same._

“She’s telling the truth, Harvey,” said Jessica Pearson as she strode in, a binder-clipped file in hand.

“What?” he asked, as they both turned to look at Jessica.

“Scottie didn’t get us fired. Ava Hessington did.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Harvey scoffed. “Scottie could have arranged it.”

“Well, she didn’t,” Jessica insisted, giving her a quick, empathetic look. “Because Ava didn’t just fire us, she’s _suing_ all of us for malpractice.” She tossed what must be a printout of the complaint onto Harvey’s desk.

Harvey turned slowly, a look of the slightest chagrin on his face, but Dana couldn’t enjoy the victory when things were now just shittier than ever.

"Well, fuck," she said, if for no other reason than that something needed to be said. Jessica gave her a bit of a stern look but nodded, and Harvey still wouldn’t look at her. Dana waited a couple of moments for him to apologize, but it seemed that that wasn’t forthcoming, and she didn’t care to wait around until it was.

“I’m going back to my hotel,” she announced, quietly. “Harvey, you have my cell. When you’re ready to stop staring at that complaint and blaming me for things I didn’t do, give me a call and we can talk strategy.” She shrugged. “Or just give my number to Jessica. At this point it’s all the same to me.” She nodded to both of them and walked calmly out of his office. He would come to her eventually, if only because this time, he really had no other choice.


End file.
